It’s Tuesday morning and the women have returned to their projects.
There’s five of them in all, armed with small saws, tiny hammers and miniature chisels, and it’s a good thing they’re making metal jewelry and not building a house, because to be perfectly honest, it would literally take them until 2114 with tools of that size. It’s the third week of Intro to Metal Jewelry 1 at the League of N.H. Craftsmen, and the soon-to-be accessories are starting to take shape.
Soon the pieces of jewelry will be as shiny and new as the metal studio in which they’re working. This group just so happens to be among the lucky students who get to break in the recently completed work area that also doubles as a glass studio.
Since the League’s headquarters moved to its current location at 49 S. Main St. in 2011, there have been classes held in this basement floor room of the building, so that’s nothing new. With so many workshops and demos going on, every bit of the League’s space has been utilized over the last three years. But there were some glaring limitations when it came to providing the full educational experience when it came to metal work. Those limitations are now a distant memory, like the small pieces of metal carefully being eliminated from the jewelry.
Now it’s a jewelry makers dream – just ask the class’s teacher, Barbara McLaughlin, who is used to teaching out of her one car garage where every new task meant moving something out of the way. The prized possession in the room is the new exhaust system with large black suction hoses that look like something you might see right before being abducted by aliens. It’s set up to handle seven soldering stations for maximum efficiency since the class sizes are kept real low.
“Seven students can come in here and work without a problem,” McLaughlin said. “We try to make it as functional as possible.”
The hoses even have this thing called a blast-gate to regulate the suction so you don’t accidentally suck your scarf up the tube. Since it’s in an office building that also houses Concord Hospital’s Center for Health Promotion, having soldering fumes just roaming around is likely frowned upon. And since there was no ventilation system before, the whole idea of soldering was a big no-no.
“Before you had to connect the metal in another way,” said education coordinator Stacey Herlitz. “Now, everyone can have their own soldering torch.”
The soldering stations form a U around the outside of the room with shiny steel tables, but don’t worry about burn marks ruining the fresh new look because these spacial pads that live in sleek new cabinets are made to take the heat. Four maple tables make one big work area in the middle of the room, with a teaching station at the front that allows for an ideal spot for instruction and demonstration.
“It’s pretty much state of the art,” Herlitz said.
There are all kinds of neat toys, like kilns, grinders (not the sandwich kind) and a buffing machine. And all the room needs to be a completed glass studio is to have the torches attached to the natural gas lines, and then glass beads will just be flowing out of that room.
The floor plan was created by a juried member of the League, and much of the equipment was donated. But this wasn’t an overnight kind of project. It had been in the plans since the move – and before Herlitz joined the staff. There was a lot of money needed for this project and it took a few years of asking for donations at the annual fall auction.
“For a number of years they knew that’s what they wanted this space for. We knew it was going to take some time,” Herlitz said. “So we asked people to donate to this cause and they did.”
Once they generated enough funds, the construction phase began in July 2013. The space officially opened in late October and is getting plenty of use between classes, workshops and the guided open studios each Monday. The plan is to expand on what is offered, especially once the glass portion is completely up and running.
“The metal was first and the glass is coming,” Herlitz said.
And if you like shiny new things – as well as being crafty – you might want to check out the complete list of educational experiences offered at the League at nhcrafts.org/craftcenter. It’s never too late to try something new.
